Dolphins WR Brian Hartline: We have a "championship offense"

Teammates weren't as enthusiastic but everyone's excited about changes

Brian Hartline went over 1,000 yards in receptions for the year during the… (Jim Rassol, Sun Sentinel )

April 23, 2013|By Chris Perkins

Ask wide receiver Brian Hartline what he thinks of the Dolphins’ revamped offense and he won’t mince words.

“Championship offense,” he said.

Meaning…?

“I think we got every move we needed to make,” he said. “We probably could add some depth at certain positions, but we’ve got all the pieces to the car, now we’ve just got to put it altogether.”

Those are heady expectations from a team that’s had four consecutive losing seasons and last year ranked 27th in total offense and 27th in scoring offense. But this year’s free agent moves such as signing wide receivers Mike Wallace and Brandon Gibson, and tight end Dustin Keller have the players excited.

About 20 Dolphins players gathered at the Miami Dolphins Kids Fishing Clinic at the International Game Fish Association in Dania. They spent Tuesday afternoon fishing with kids at the pond on the grounds of the IGFA.

Some, such as guard John Jerry, who grew up in Mississippi, and tackle Nate Garner, who grew up in Arkansas, were fisherman as kids. Others, such as tackle Jonathan Martin, who grew up in California and didn’t fish as kid, had no idea what they were doing.

But even in the midst of a charity/vacation activity they all seemed excited about the prospect of getting back to work. Most of the players have been at the facility lifting weights for the past few weeks.

Hartline’s teammates weren’t as candid as him, but it’s clear they’re all fired up about the additions general manager Jeff Ireland made during free agency. And they’re especially excited about the prospect of having a big-play offense.

“It’s going to be real explosive,” center Mike Pouncey said of the offense. “I think we had a lot of explosive plays (last year). We were just short a few players. We lost a great tight end, but we’ve got a guy now (Keller) that can stretch the field at tight end. We’ve got a guy now that can obviously stretch the field at receiver (Wallace), so I think that’ll be good for our offense.

“(Quarterback) Ryan Tannehill had a phenomenal rookie year with the talent he had on the football field, and obviously he has a few more pieces to throw to this year so we’re expecting a lot of big things out of him this year.”

Tannehill knows that, and said he’s been working hard on his game. He’s been throwing to Hartline for a couple of months and Tannehill has been examining tape from last year.

“I took some time off,” Tannehill said of his off-season, “let the mind and body recover a little bit, then evaluated my season last year, went back and watched all my games, all my throws, decisions at the line, and then started working on the field again, and then went back and watched my throws in games.

“So I’m really trying to improve on the things I didn’t do well last year, get better at the things I did do OK, and go from there.”

We’ll see how it all ends up. As many players said, there’s still lots of work to do. But they’re all very encouraged so far.

“I think the moves we made were great,” guard Richie Incognito said. “We had some obvious holes we needed to fill and I think with the talent they brought in it’s exciting times.

“Everyone’s excited around the building, everyone’s excited in the city of Miami, and we’re just excited to get back to work and start building our foundation as a team.”